Ryzen Build 3x PCI Express full size?

[Shawn]

I've been hearing nagging to get rid of my E3 server. It was a 1U but that was too noisy for the SO, so I moved it to a mid-tower case. Now it's too ugly/cluttery.

So here's my goal:

Eliminate both E3 home-server and Intel Workstation, with a Ryzen build.

I was thinking:

• Ryzen 1700
• 80+ Gold PSU from Intel Desktop/Home-Workstation build
• 2x 16GB UDIMMs ECC Kingston RAM (Wendell tested this model and it worked fine and offers ECC scrubbing options in bios on his Asrock X370 Taichi).
• My 4x 1TB HDDs in ZFSZ2 and 1TB HDD Games drive + Linux/boot SSD. (I plan to migrate my data off the ZFS array to a external HDD while all this goes on.)
• I already have a few GPUs laying around (GTX 980 & AMD 7790).

The complicated part is I need three PCI Express 2.0 x8 slots, can Ryzen do that with the amount of PCI lanes?

Essentially will be running PCI Passthrough via IOMMU on KVM GNU/Linux, for a Windows VM on my Nvidia 980, the second PCI Express slot will run a AMD 7790 GPU just for the GNU/Linux host. Lastly my Mellanox Connectx-2 needs a PCI Express slot (slot 3).

Since AMD Ryzen lacks an iGPU ;(, I have to use that 7790, which messes up my plan as Asrock X370 Taichi seemed to be the best motherboard for ECC so far.

Honestly at this point would going Intel be a better option? I'd prefer to keep this whole fiasco under $700 as frankly all this trouble is irritating.

PS: Bonus points to those running Solus GNU/Linux .

 

[MiniKnight]

Here's what you can do DemoEval Ryzen03 - With Blue LEDs

Replace the cheap Linux GPU with a PCIe x1 GPU like that. Then add your second GPU and the Mellanox. For a Linux desktop. $50 solves that problem Amazon.com: ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 1GB DDR3 PCIE x 1 , DVI, HDMI, VGA, Low Profile Graphic Card (ZT-71304-20L): Computers & Accessories

I was thinking:

• 2x 16GB UDIMMs ECC Kingston RAM

We have 4 at work, I think @Patrick + @William are running 6-8 machines for weeks now? There's enough posting in these forums that I'd say the consensus is that they're not stable in Linux like Intel.

If you think that ECC memory is going to make it stable, you're kidding yourself. The IOMMU video he posted has a demo hard lockup in the background. @Patrick's STH B 350 video

See 1:49 and 3:03

He had a hard lockup during the first reboot and just enabling IOMMU in the BIOS caused a lock and the system not to boot.

My point is, ECC memory, especially UDIMMs, are meant for getting just that last 0.01% of reliability. Seeing those two videos have two machines hard locking and they're like 2.5 weeks old at most. From the experience others are sharing, and what I'm seeing with our X370 machines, you're not going to notice that last 0.01% from ECC. It's still like adding water sealant to the deck of the Titanic while it is sinking.

I love my Ryzen. System costs aren't half, they're more like -$300 for 8 cores. But they're nowhere near the stability of Intel systems.

As much as I use Linux, you're better off using Windows 10 as a base OS then using Hyper-V for Linux VMs and just using 1 GPU instead of 2. I know that's heresy around these parts, but it you're wanting a stable system you can avoid IOMMU altogether.

 

[Shawn]

Here's what you can do DemoEval Ryzen03 - With Blue LEDs

Replace the cheap Linux GPU with a PCIe x1 GPU like that. Then add your second GPU and the Mellanox. For a Linux desktop. $50 solves that problem Amazon.com: ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 1GB DDR3 PCIE x 1 , DVI, HDMI, VGA, Low Profile Graphic Card (ZT-71304-20L): Computers & Accessories


We have 4 at work, I think @Patrick + @William are running 6-8 machines for weeks now? There's enough posting in these forums that I'd say the consensus is that they're not stable in Linux like Intel.

If you think that ECC memory is going to make it stable, you're kidding yourself. The IOMMU video he posted has a demo hard lockup in the background. @Patrick's STH B 350 video

See 1:49 and 3:03

He had a hard lockup during the first reboot and just enabling IOMMU in the BIOS caused a lock and the system not to boot.

My point is, ECC memory, especially UDIMMs, are meant for getting just that last 0.01% of reliability. Seeing those two videos have two machines hard locking and they're like 2.5 weeks old at most. From the experience others are sharing, and what I'm seeing with our X370 machines, you're not going to notice that last 0.01% from ECC. It's still like adding water sealant to the deck of the Titanic while it is sinking.

I love my Ryzen. System costs aren't half, they're more like -$300 for 8 cores. But they're nowhere near the stability of Intel systems.

As much as I use Linux, you're better off using Windows 10 as a base OS then using Hyper-V for Linux VMs and just using 1 GPU instead of 2. I know that's heresy around these parts, but it you're wanting a stable system you can avoid IOMMU altogether.

B350 seems to have meh IOMMU groups/support but Asrock's X370 Taichi and some other boards on the X370 platform seem to have cluttery but working IOMMU.

I understand your point about ECC, but I can't see myself going from an E3 w/ ECC to Ryzen/AMD without ECC. It just feels wrong, especially with all the VMs I plan to run.

I'm actually not allowed to run Windows as a host OS for security reasons (Telemetry), so I figured I would run a Windows VM for when I want to game or RDP without Guacameloi (however it's spelled, it's Apache's RDP solution ).